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Daily Life and Urban Spaces of Colombian Emigrants in Two U.S. Cities: a Photographic Documentary

Keywords

Documentary Photography, Immigration, Colombians, Urban Spaces

Proposer

Guzman, Rodolfo

Institution

Earlham College

Abstract

In today's language, culture and literature classrooms students are increasingly required to illustrate their language proficiency and cultural knowledge through visual and audiovisual representations, although many of them or their professors have never received proper training in this area. As a professional in the area of teaching Spanish language, colonial literature and Latin American culture, I've long been fascinated by the power of visual representations and photography as cultural and sociopolitical texts but have never had the support or time to fully develop these skills. I am asking for the support of this New Directions Initiative in the category of Broadening Intellectual Perspectives in order to develop an endeavor which consists of enrolling in intensive summer photography classes (digital) and then using the skills I will acquire in these classes to develop a gallery exhibition about the daily life and the new urban spaces that recent Colombian emigrants encounter and reshape in two different USA cities; New York and Miami. Pedagogically, the skills and knowledge that I will acquire from this project will be directly applied to stimulating and teaching my students how to plan and produce a cross-cultural photographic essay. I also wish to incorporate the production of documentary photography in my future advanced language and culture classes and during my participation in programs abroad.